In the Dominican, Starling Marte hit his first home run of the winter. It was a step in the right direction for him through his first eight games. After a 1-for-4, two strikeout night, Marte is now 4-for-32 with one walk and 11 strikeouts. His hits so far are a single, double, triple and a homer.
Here’s the home run by Marte. He hit it off of Marcus Walden, who has three years of Triple-A experience, and one brief call-up to the majors in April 2014, in which he didn’t get to pitch.
Se fue!! la #TablaEscarlata cuadrangular enorme de Starling Marte por todo el jardín izquierdo, su 1ero de la temporada en el 6to Inning pic.twitter.com/6xKDzEDDyf
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Jung-Ho Kang went 0-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts. He’s hitting .121 through 19 games, with a league leading 26 strikeouts. His defense has been better recently after four errors in his first ten games. He has gone nine games without a defensive miscue.
Pablo Reyes had a tough night, going 0-for-4 with two strikeouts and an error. That dropped him down to a .208 average through 18 games.
Edwin Espinal went 0-for-3 with a sacrifice fly. He has a .327 average and nine walks in 18 games.
Anderson Feliz went 1-for-2 with a double and two walks. He has a .355 average through 31 at-bats, with two doubles, two triples, a homer and six walks.
In Venezuela, Elvis Escobar saw action in both games of a doubleheader. In the first game, he went 1-for-3 with a single. He went 0-for-3 in the second game and now has a .278 average through 25 games. The Pirates asked Escobar to work on stealing bases this winter, but so far he has attempted just four steals, two successfully.
** This is just going here because there is nowhere else to put it. The Pirates re-signed one of their 16 minor league free agents. Samuel Gonzalez, who has been in the organization since 2009, was re-signed on Friday. He was technically a minor league free agent, but he’s actually a full-time coach since he last played in 2013. Minor leagues have a limit on the amount of coaches they can have in the dugout, but a “player” on the disabled list all year can be there, so you get player-coaches. They have been forced into action a few times over the years, but it’s rare and it’s usually just for one game until a regular player can get there from another affiliate.
